"It is expected," the ritual adds, "that the heavenly gods will be favorably disposed by reason of these offerings, ceremonies, and ritual of the Great Purification, and will deign to purify and cleanse, and make all the specified offenses disappear, even as the clouds of heaven and the dense morning and evening mists disappear before the blowing winds." It is expected that "the goddess who resides in the current of the rapid stream that comes boiling down the ravines, from the tops of the mountains," and the goddess who resides in the currents of the briny ocean will carry them away, and "swallow them down with gurgling sound," and they shall be utterly "blown away, banished, and got rid of," so that "from this day onwards there will be no offense in the four quarters of the region under heaven, especially with regard to all people of all offices who respectfully serve in the court of the Sovran." The offenses were thought of as somehow swept away by the winds and the waves, and then swallowed into the depths of the sea, and so cast down into the underworld, the realm of death and pollution, whence all defilements were supposed to have originated. So they were cast down into the depths whence they came forth. The concluding words of this ritual are a command for the "diviners of the four countries to leave and go away to the great river-way, and carry away the offenses by purification." Thus divination was honored, as moving in the will and way of the gods; but incantation is mentioned among the "earthly offenses." Probably these evil incantations refer to evil-minded witchcraft and invoking calamity on others. This great ritual ceremony of purification, being one of the most solemn formal expressions of the Shinto cult, calls for the following remarks: (1) The central idea is purification from certain forms of evil, or certain kinds of offenses. (2) The offenses are conceived as either willfully committed, or committed inadvertently. (3) They are also spoken of as heavenly and earthly. This distinction seems to us quite arbitrary and unnatural, but it probably had a mythical origin and the offenses called heavenly are mainly such as involve distress for an agricultural community. They are sins against the _land_ of the gods, while the earthly offenses are mainly matters of personal defilement. In all cases it is conspicuous that the Shinto concept of offenses which need purging away is that of outward physical pollution and damage. They are all offenses committed against the interests of the community and likely to bring some kind of calamity upon the people. (4) We should also remark that while, according to the ritual of the Great Purification, it is expected that from that day forwards "no offense which is called offense" will occur again in the four quarters of the whole region under heaven, the same ceremony of purification is repeated every six months--year in and year out.